Chinese companies to build largest wind farm in Bosnia

A consortium of Chinese companies will build an 84 megawatt (MW) wind farm in southwestern Bosnia, which will be the largest in the Balkan country, at a cost of about 100 million euros ($112.6 million), a regional official said on Wednesday.

“The works on the Ivovik wind farm should begin in the spring,” Ivan Vukadin, the prime minister of the Herceg-Bosna cantonal government, told Reuters on the margins of a green energy conference in Sarajevo.

Herceg-Bosna is one of 10 cantons in the Bosniak-Croat Federation, one of Bosnia’s two autonomous regions.

Vukadin said the consortium comprising the China National Technical Import & Export Corporation and the Powerchina Resources Ltd has obtained all necessary permits to start building the farm with an annual output of 236.6 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity.

The consortium has acquired the project from a local company which was given concession for the project in 2008.

Chinese companies have invested mainly in coal-fired power plants in Bosnia and this would be their first investment in green energy.

Bosnia plans to gradually cut energy output from coal, aiming to totally stop such production by 2050.